Indian Railways to increase train fares this week to battle revenue loss

The Indian Railways is all set to hike train fares this week by 5 to 40 paise per kilometer. The revised fares will apply across all categories be it AC coaches or unreserved or suburban monthly/quarterly ticket cost.
In the month of November, the prime minter's office gave its nod of approval to the railways for the implementation of rail fare hike.

News has it that the railways are facing financial issues due to the ongoing economic slowdown. So much so, the railway freight revenue of went down to INR 19412 crore between April and October 2019. Also, due to the low fares offered by the airlines, railways have lost a lot of their passengers this year. Reportedly, the income of railways has been INR 99223 crore against the estimate of INR 118 lakh crore.


Whereas, the total expenditure shot up by Rs 4,099 crore during this period to Rs 1.01 lakh crore, against a target of Rs 97,265 crore.

Also, the railways saw an operating ratio of 98.44 per cent between 2017-18, the lowest in the last 10 years, as per a report by Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG).

The Railways has not been able to achieve its operational cost of passenger services etc. About 95 percent of the revenue from freight traffic was used to make up for the loss incurred by the passenger and other coaching services.